Start your own solar business, or team your business with a solar co-operative

The solar industry is in the beginning stages of consolidation, with the big getting bigger, and it is getting harder for the others to compete on cost. Just as the hardware and hard goods industry has been affected by consolidation and competition from national chains, the solar industry is going through the same phenomenon. Lessons from the co-operative movement can be learned and applied to the solar PV industry, and the independent business people who pioneered the solar industry now have an opportunity to survive the coming consolidation. This presentation drives home the case for a solar co-operative, an initiative that emerged on June 26 in Los Angeles California, with a small group of industry innovators.